Mendocino College Redefines Student Support with Invoke AlterEgoTM
The Questions
Like many colleges at the start of the semester, Mendocino’s IT help desk was overwhelmed. A flood of routine tier-one calls — password resets, multifactor authentication (MFA) issues, Wi-Fi setup — pulled support technicians away from their core onsite responsibilities. Students needed fast answers, but the small team couldn’t keep up, creating bottlenecks and delays.
The challenge wasn’t just operational. Students expected immediate, always-on support, which became the norm after the pandemic. Traditional help desk hours weren’t enough, leaving students frustrated when they couldn’t access systems outside business hours
"Every student expects 24/7 support now. They're used to it from the companies they deal with every day," explained Dave Johnston, Director of Information Technology at Mendocino College. "If they call us on a Sunday night and can't log in, waiting until Monday just doesn't cut it anymore."
Mendocino lacked a system that could provide consistent, around-the-clock support without requiring additional hires.
The college wanted to solve two problems at once:
- How can we relieve the burden on our IT staff while freeing them for higher-value tasks
- How can we ensure students can get fast, reliable help whenever they need it?
"Every IT department is understaffed. Higher ed is chaos at the the start of the semester."
The Challenge
For years, Mendocino College relied on a traditional help desk model supported by a small team of desktop support technicians. These staff members juggled their core responsibilities, including maintaining equipment and troubleshooting technical issues, alongside handling a flood of incoming help desk calls. The situation was particularly intense during peak periods, such as the two weeks prior to and after the start of a semester.
These calls followed a predictable pattern but demanded substantial human time. The effort to manage them wasn’t scalable, which caused missed opportunities for both students and IT staff.
For students, it meant delays and frustration when they needed help. For IT staff, it meant fewer hours to dedicate to more complex or impactful work. Mendocino College needed a system that could handle high-volume, repetitive requests automatically, freeing staff to focus on more nuanced, in-person support while maintaining fast, reliable service for students.
Enter Invoke AlterEgoTM.
The Solution
Invoke AlterEgoTM is an AI-powered, interactive help desk assistant designed specifically for higher education to handle high-volume, repetitive inquiries through natural language conversation. Part of the InvokeLearning suite of data management solutions, AlterEgoTM can integrate directly with colleges’ and universities’ existing systems using generative AI, providing a responsive, scalable alternative to a traditional help desk.
With the ability to address 1,000 inquiries at once, AlterEgoTM delivers consistent, personalized help at any hour, saving time and improving outcomes. It can also speak up to 35 languages, switching back and forth natively, which is critical for multilingual student bodies.
Beyond IT support, AlterEgo™ offers a range of purpose-built personas for higher education to meet unique campus needs, including advising assistants and virtual tutors. Whether answering routine questions, providing academic guidance, offering tutoring support, or routing VIPs to the right department, AlterEgo™ is available by email, phone call, webchat, or texting to meet users wherever they are, whenever they need help.
Mendocino leveraged their existing relationship with Invoke Learning and their InvokeClarity data lakehouse, which had already consolidated their institutional data. This integration allowed the AlterEgoTM bot to access only the necessary subset of student data for authentication, such as names, phone numbers, and student IDs, ensuring security while keeping interactions efficient.
David Johnston described the AlterEgo™ implementation process at Mendocino College as smooth and efficient. The deployment was focused on addressing their single most time-consuming challenge: tier-one tech support requests, especially password resets. “If we could get the bot to do that, that was going to be a success,” Johnston says.
Key to the solution’s success was its ease of customization and knowledge base management. Adding new capabilities, such as instructions for multi-factor authentication or department-specific inquiries, now takes minutes instead of hours.
Managing the bot's knowledge base is simple. We just upload Word or PDF documents. We update it frequently as new questions arise, and the bot learns instantly."
Within weeks, the bot was handling hundreds of calls and providing immediate responses 24/7, ensuring no student inquiry went unanswered. For Mendocino College, AlterEgoTM became not just a tool but a force multiplier, freeing staff capacity while improving service for students.
The Answers
"Every call gets answered right away. Even if the bot can't resolve the issue, it can transfer the call to a human during office hours or open a ticket."
Suffice to say, the Mendocino staff and students have a friend in AlterEgoTM.
Before Invoke AlterEgoTM, students could only get help during business hours and often had to wait until the next day or longer for a response. Now, Mendocino College offers 24/7 support for routine tech issues.
Automation of Repetitive Tasks
The bot has taken over tier-one inquiries such as password resets and Wi‑Fi onboarding (up to 1,000 at a time!), freeing up IT staff to focus on complex issues that require human expertise.
Dynamic Knowledge Base
AlterEgoTM’s easy knowledge base management means the system evolves with the institution’s needs. Updates are simple and fast, enabling quick responses to new questions without lengthy coding or integration processes.
The Results
Mendocino is already seeing improvements across several areas.
AlterEgoTM immediately handles the bulk of routine requests, such as password resets and MFA inquiries, at any time of day or night. Students no longer face delays that once stretched over hours or days. Mendocino is now experiencing a 90% first call resolution rate with zero human involvement.
Student Satisfaction & Access
Students appreciate quick answers without having to wait for office hours. Immediate access supports an improved student experience, aligning with post-pandemic expectations for round‑the‑clock service.
IT Team Efficiency & Scalability
With the bot handling high volumes of routine inquiries, Mendocino’s small IT team can focus on strategic initiatives instead of repetitive support tasks. The bot also scales seamlessly to handle fluctuations in volume, such as the rush two weeks before and after the semester starts.
“We’re already talking about broadening AlterEgoTM to other departments — financial aid, admissions, records. They have the same kind of repetitive questions that a bot could answer, and that would be a big win for both students and staff.”
How Can AlterEgoTM Help Your School?
Discover how Invoke Learning can help your institution work smarter and serve students better. Connect with us to schedule a demo and see what AlterEgoTM can do for your school.